Hollywood Forever

L.A. is famous for many things, but an abundance of large green spaces isn't the first thing that comes to mind. I grew up in a large Northern European city where grass, flowers, trees and bushes in public parks provide instant stress relief for the human species known as Rat Race Contestant. Benches and birds complete the picture in these urban versions of Eden. Bonus: there are no snakes and you don't get kicked out for eating an apple.

It wasn't so long ago that Los Angeles was green. In black/white photos taken less than a century ago the city is almost unrecognizable: fields, dirt roads, a few farm buildings, and zero gridlock - no traffic reports or Sig alerts needed. But thanks to Mister Ford, Mister Mulholland, early movie moguls, oil men and other crafty folks the area went through drastic changes and Green Acres eventually became Paved-Over-Acres. Dreamy magazine ads with pictures of orange groves portraying L.A. and surroundings as an earthly paradise worked their magic on countless ordinary people who packed up and migrated west, drawn like moths to a flame. And really, who could blame them?

The Big Apple is lucky to have Central Park, an oasis which probably ensures the relative sanity of many a Manhattan dweller and seems a hand-in-glove fit for the island. Green areas without parking spaces and buildings on the other hand seem borderline freaky in L.A., but think of them instead as a large rectangular Central Park cake cut into smaller guilt-free slices - perfect for the calorie counting Los Angeles crowd.

The Thomas Guide lists hundreds of parks in Los Angeles and while every square-foot of green counts, an article such as this only allows for a very short list of stand-outs plus a hands-down favorite of mine. But let's give it up for the city's many Little Parks!

Griffith Park is the biggest of L.A. parks and includes The Greek Theater and the Observatory as bonus points - wildfires as bummer points. Much of the large UCLA campus is lovely with an Ivy League look. Pan Pacific Park is a pretty and underrated spot. MacArthur Park has seen much improvement in the last few years and the neighborhood surrounding it badly needs the greenery. There's also the beautiful Huntington Botanical Gardens and Descanso Gardens, but neither of these beautiful places are smack in the middle of L.A.

Hollywood Forever is my favorite, in part because it's an unlikely contender: a cemetery and park rolled into

• 1
• 2
• 3
• next page >>

---

Add your voice

Know something about Tips for visiting Hollywood, Los Angeles?
We want to hear your view. Write now!